


what we have left undone

by pdameron



Category: Black Sails
Genre: Angst, Episode Tag, Implied Jewish Silver, M/M, Mutual Pining, Trust Issues
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-18
Updated: 2018-05-18
Packaged: 2019-05-08 11:52:42
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,096
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14693675
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pdameron/pseuds/pdameron
Summary: “You have my genuine friendship,” he says on the cliff, voice quavering, “and loyalty. Can that be enough?”Flint hesitates, stares down at his sword for a charged, long moment, and Silver can feel his heart splinter as he realizes that it isn’t.(yet another Flint and Silver on the Cliff Fic)





	what we have left undone

**Author's Note:**

> this was a prompt on tumblr that i was kind of proud of??? weird i know???? and it was super long for a tumblr fic so i crossposted it here!!!
> 
> also because i'm one of those people who forgets that there's fic on tumblr and constantly refreshes ao3... i can't be the only one
> 
> title from into the woods my one true musical love

 

 

Silver knows he’s staring.

He’s  _been_  staring, near constantly, since that night they buried the cache, when Flint confided in him the tragedy of his heart and gave this war a name.

The gentleness in his eyes as he spoke of Thomas Hamilton, the wistful smile that crossed his face as he remembered a time when he was happy and in love; they’ve haunted Silver, these past weeks, followed him like ghosts. He closes his eyes, and all he can see is Flint’s face in the dim glow of the lantern.

It’s as if something’s been lifted from Flint’s shoulders, despite the war looming in the distance, in the back of their minds. He’s more at ease with himself than Silver has ever seen him, and Silver - he likes it more than he should.

Silver hoards Flint’s every smile, his every warm glance. 

Flint’s lips quirk, quietly pleased as he removes his peg, and Silver stares, committing to memory the crow’s feet along his eyes, the way he tucks his arms behind him, hiding his ever-fidgeting hands. 

Flint chuckles at his teasing observation about learning to defeat  _him_ , and Silver stares, memorizing the fondness lit up in his eyes, the way he shakes his head in his amusement.

He lands a “blow” for the first time, his sword on Flint’s shoulder there mostly due to sheer dumb luck, Flint grinning even as he suffers this fluke of a defeat, and Silver stares, watching the rise and fall of his chest, the way the lines in his cheeks deepen.

Silver stares, and stares, like the selfish, lonely man he’s always been, taking that affection, that tenderness he sees in Flint’s eyes and hiding it away, covetous and desperate to have something good,something _his_  to think on when things inevitably fall apart - 

And fall apart it does.

It’s Silver’s fault, as he always expected it would be. 

“I have no idea who you were,” Flint says, curious, and Silver can practically feel his heart drop into his stomach. He feels his throat start to tighten as the panic begins to set in even as he plays it off and tells another lie about the -

“ - home for boys, I know, I know,” Flint interrupts. “Except it isn’t true, is it?”

Silver stares, this time helplessly, as Flint unravels his every fiction, as he lays him bare, and asks him why he’d still  _lie,_  after everything they’ve been through.

“It isn’t important,” he’s trying not to lie, not to disappoint Flint yet again, but - is it really a lie when he so desperately _wants_ it to be true?

Flint remarks that he’s been made transparent to Silver, and he wants to laugh: yes, Silver knows Flint’s story, his past, but he’s nothing if not greedy, and what he wants more is Flint’s  _present_. He wants to be a part of Flint as inexorably as Mrs. Barlow was, as Thomas Hamilton was, and wants Flint to be a part of him. Flint already  _is_  a part of him, if he’s being honest with himself (a skill at which he’s never been particularly gifted). He couldn’t begin to guess what he means to Flint, and he doesn’t know if he wants to find out, lest he find himself - for once - the more invested party.

“I don’t want you to know mine,” Silver says, walking away from Flint as quickly as he can on the crutch. The last thing he needs is for Flint to see the redness of his eyes after the implication that he only wanted to be a part of this narrative to ensure his own survival. “I understand your concern, I just - ”

And he does understand: if he were Flint, he’d have doubts as well.

He spends the night alone, agonizing over what he’ll say to Flint the next day at their training while trying to keep the memories at bay. 

What he eventually settles on - that there is no story to tell, that there is no relevance to who he was, that that scared, lost little boy does not define the man he is now - is all he can bear to say aloud. 

“You have my genuine friendship,” he says on the cliff, voice quavering, “and loyalty. Can that be enough?”

Flint hesitates, stares down at his sword for a charged, long moment, and Silver can feel his heart splinter as he realizes that it  _isn’t_. 

He goes through the rest of their training in a daze, half-hearted as best as these wounds cross over and reopen scars he’d thought long since healed. Flint eventually ends the session early, let down not just by Silver’s reluctance to make himself known but by his shoddy swordsmanship as well. 

Silver doesn’t bother putting the boot back on: this day has already brought him low enough; what does it matter if the rest of the camp sees the one-legged creature? 

He spends the rest of the day hiding in his room, pacing back and forth and trying not to drown in his regrets.

Silver has always,  _always_  known that he could never be what Flint needed. He’d just assumed it would be some sort of failure on his part that led to Flint’s realization of this: maybe he wouldn’t be able to handle playing the pirate king Nassau and Billy need him to be; maybe he’d make some blunder of a tactical decision; maybe his cowardly streak would return, and he’d run before he could think better of it…

But instead, what isn’t enough for Flint is simply Silver himself.

There’s a knock, and then Flint ( _of course_ it's Flint) is poking his head through the curtain that serves as his door. 

“You weren’t at dinner, I thought I’d bring you some - are you alright?” Flint’s shirt is wet; it must be raining. Strange, that Silver’s been staring out his window for hours now, and he hadn’t noticed. 

“When aren’t I?” He asks, hoping the smile he pastes on his face will be enough to reassure the captain. Flint’s brow furrows, and he drops the plate he’d brought Silver on the sole table in the room before walking to his side. 

“You look as though you’ve been crying,” Flint says, concern etched along his features, reaching out as if to clasp Silver’s arm. He stops, though, just before he touches him, and it makes Silver want to start crying all over again.

He did that. He made this chasm between them.

“I’m fine,” he replies, and then winces. How many lies has he told Flint today?

“If this is about this afternoon…”

Silver turns back to the window, crossing his arms over the top of his crutch. 

“It’s fine,” he repeats, trying to convince both Flint and himself. “It was too much to ask, that you still trust me, still call me friend when you’ve given me so much and I - I can’t even - ”

Flint does touch him then, grabbing both his arms and bodily turning him to face him. “Silver -  _John_ , stop.”

Silver’s bites his lower lip as it starts to tremble, tries to blink away the familiar sting in his eyes as he stares vacantly at Flint’s shoulders (not his eyes, he can’t bear it, not now). “I’m sorry.”

Flint’s response to his whispered apology is to simply pull Silver close and wrap his arms around the smaller man. He strokes a hand along the back of Silver’s head, through his loose, tangled curls. Silver burrows his face into Flint’s chest and finds that he’s willing to be pitied, if it means his captain will just hold him like this for a while longer.

Eventually, far too soon in Silver’s opinion, Flint pulls back, his hand cupping the back of his neck.

“Perhaps I should have made this more clear to you, but I’ve been told before that emotional honesty is not my strong suit. I’ve often found that my actions speak to how I’m feeling when I myself cannot find the words. I realize, now, that I shouldn’t have spent so long looking for those words, for you read into my silence a displeasure, perhaps even an anger, that simply isn’t there.”

Silver does look up at that, confused, to find not disappointment in Flint’s eyes, like he’d expected, but that same warmth he’s grown so attached to in these past few weeks. 

“John, not knowing who you were does not change the love I have for who you  _are_.”

Silver sucks in a sharp gasp, his eyes widening. He can barely remember the last time someone told him they loved him, let alone the last time he believed it, and yet - Flint wouldn’t lie to him. Not about this. 

Silver might not be able to put into words those horrors that shaped him, but this? This he can give to Flint. He can try.

“I - you must know that I feel the same, that I - ”

This time, when Flint cuts him off, he’s smiling. “I'll admit, I wasn’t sure, but your behavior when I came in just now certainly gave me a clue.”

Silver has for days on end, it feels, wanted nothing more than to kiss that fond smile, to feel it against his lips, and he realizes suddenly that he doesn’t have to hold himself back anymore. He reaches for Flint, lunges for him, really, and presses their mouths together with a near-pathetic desperation. 

He never thought he’d get to have this, not once in his wildest fantasies. 

Flint responds in kind, using the hand that’s tangled in Silver’s hair, along his neck, to slow the kiss and make it into something soft, something gentle. The feel of Flint’s mouth along his is enough to take his breath away, and when one of those hands - those hands he’s stared at nearly as often as that damned smile - slips under his shirt, rubs light, teasing patterns against the sensitive, rarely-touched skin on his back, Silver  _gasps_ , pulling away from the kiss, suddenly dizzy with want. 

Flint smirks, entirely too smug, and Silver, in response, pushes him, until he’s forced to take several steps backwards and sit on the bed. The smugness shifts to wide-eyed want as Silver climbs into his lap and kisses him senseless. 

Flint’s hands are everywhere: grasping at his ass; running up under his shirt; clutching at his thighs; but Silver just can’t bear to take his hands away from Flint’s face, to stop running his thumbs along those cheekbones, the freckles he knows are there even with his eyes closed. 

But he’s still stuck on where they were this afternoon, on how let down Flint had seemed at Silver’s response to his questions. He pulls back, panting, hardly any space between their lips.

“I’m sorry, are you _sure_ you - ”

Flint’s response to Silver’s self doubt is to kiss him some more, to reach up and thread his fingers into his curls and crush their mouths together hungrily. 

They end up lying down on the bed, their shirts lost in the shuffle, Flint hovering over him as he kisses his way down his chest. There’s a brief moment of hesitation though, when Flint finally gets his breeches off and he first sees Silver’s cock. 

“Oh,” he says quietly, almost to himself, as he takes in Silver’s lack of foreskin.

When he glances back up and meets Silver’s gaze, there’s an understanding in his eyes, a seriousness there that doesn’t belong in this heated moment. Silver should feel panicked at what this means, at what Flint now  _knows_ , but he just finds himself relieved that there is apparently some part of his past Flint can know without a word passing between them. Flint, ever the perceptive one, keeps his revelation to himself, doesn’t push the issue, and he lets himself be dragged back up for a kiss without a moment’s pause.

 

*****

 

It’s only the following morning, when Flint is waking him up with lazy, languid kisses, that Silver realizes he never actually said the words. He starts to speak,  but there’s a pair of lips in the way. 

“Flint, I - ,” Another kiss, this time with a hint of tongue, and Silver sighs into it, gets lost for a moment, running his hands along Flint’s freckled shoulders. He’s so at peace, so unbelievably cozy, that he doesn’t bother to open his eyes as he finishes his thought.

“I love you,” He mumbles against Flint’s mouth, and the sweet kisses stop. He opens his eyes blearily, letting out a petulant whine, but then he sees the gentle, loving smile on Flint’s face.

And Silver stares.

**Author's Note:**

> the prompts were:  
> 61\. Hands On The Other Person’s Back, Fingertips Pressing Under Their Top, Drawing Gentle Circles Against That Small Strip Of Bare Skin That Make Them Break The Kiss With A Gasp  
> 62\. Lazy Morning Kisses Before They’ve Even Opened Their Eyes, Still Mumbling Half-Incoherently, Not Wanting To Wake Up  
> 67\. When One Stops The Kiss To Whisper “I’m Sorry, Are You Sure You-” And They Answer By Kissing Them More
> 
> my black sails tumblr is slverjohn :)


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